Stocks Take a Joy Ride With Upbeat Consumer

If there was a silver lining, the 10-city and 20-city composites declined 18.6% and 18.7%, respectively, year over year --the second month since October 2007 when they didn't post a record decline.

"Based on the March data, however, we see no evidence that a recovery in home prices has begun," said Blitzer in the release. He added in an interview with CNBC that, "the damage, if anything, seems to be spreading out."

On a brighter note, though, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index was improved to -2.06 in April, up from -3.36 in March, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said the Texas general business activity index bettered to -21.5 from -31.6.

The dollar was recently stronger against the pound and yen and flat vs. the euro. Longer-dated Treasuries were falling, with the 10-year down 23/32, yielding 3.54%, and the 30-year falling 1-20/32, to yield 4.48%.

The U.S. sold $40 billion in two-year notes in an auction on Tuesday with what Miller Tabak's Crescenzi describes as "very good" results. But he says, "It is important to keep in mind that the 2-year note has special appeal in a zero interest rate environment that tomorrow's 5-year and Thursday's 7-year do not."

Crude oil rose 78 cents to settle at $62.45 a barrel, while gold was down $7.20 to $953.30 an ounce.

Stocks overseas were mixed. In Europe, the FTSE 100 in London and the Dax in Frankfurt were recently up 1.1% and 1.4%, respectively. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei and Hang Seng's Hong Kong lost 0.4% and 0.8%, respectively.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints